


Carry the Pieces

by Cheloya



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 09:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10806510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Imported, from 2008. Rook's memory, like his life, is in pieces.





	Carry the Pieces

  
Rook remembers his brother clear enough, but he remembers in pieces. Not all of them match up right, and not all of them make a whole lot of sense, but they’re there, and straight after the fucking professor introduces himself properly, Rook has a dear fucking wish that they weren’t. Because the second he says it, the second Rook hears the name that _used_ to be his come tumbling out of the little cindy’s mouth, he realises just why the jut of the professor’s jaw is so familiar, understands why it annoys him so fucking much when the professor cracks a smile at nothing in particular: for twenty-one fucking years, Rook’s been remembering that smile as the thing that he couldn’t protect.  
  
It’s come on a bit since then, but there’s no denying Hilary. No matter how fucking hard he tries.  
  
Rook's got a box in his room at the Airman. He doesn't look at it much, 'cause he can't fucking stand to, but every once in a while he pulls it out and takes a look before he shoves it away again, covers it over with old boots and jackets he doesn't like enough to wear more than once and pretends it doesn't exist.  
  
There's not much in it. Bits and pieces, mostly, that had seemed important when he was burying himself in Molly's guts, and by the time he made it out he'd got so used to holding onto them that it was habit more than anything that kept him snarling at anyone tried to take the fucking thing.  
  
Useless, most of it. But the thing he pulled out after that particular conversation was something he'd filched out of Charlotte when his brother was just starting to crawl - a wooden dragon with a little tin bell that drove him halfway fucking crazy on good days. He pulled it out and he glared at it and then he threw it at the fucking wall.  
  
He managed maybe ten minutes of glaring at the other wall before he had to go pick it up and spent another fifteen minutes swearing because he'd lost the fucking bell. Couldn't find it, either. And can't. Not until he's packing up every fucking thing he owns, and deciding what to leave behind, like he's had to do so many times before, and then it's there shining at him from underneath a chair, and he wastes a half hour or so putting it back into place, muffling it with his fingers because if there is one thing he doesn't want the fucking professor seeing right now it's Rook being a nostalgic fucking idiot.  
  
He puts it back together and he puts it in the box. And then when he's packing up the rucksack a couple of hours before dawn, he realises that packing a box is pretty fucking stupid when he could just take the entire fucking person along and use the room for another fucking shirt.  
  
Although given who he's talking about, maybe he'd better leave the box and the shirt and just save room for the professor's fucking notebooks. They're brothers, or will be, or were, and if there's one thing Rook can do for Hilary, it's carry around all his shit.


End file.
